28 FEBRUARY 1874, Page 3

The deaths of two Cardinals have been reported this week.

The first, Cardinal Barnabo, was to us the most important person in the Conclave, as he was head of the Propaganda, and final authority under the Pope on all Catholic religious affairs in Great Britain and Ireland. The other, Cardinal Tarquini, was the only Jesuit in the Sacred College, and supposed to exercise an enor- mous influence over the Pope, which he probably did not possess, the worthy old man generally believing with some implicitness in himself. Cardinal Tarquini had a belief in the pedigree his name indicates, and there is a book extant, we have heard, in which he collects the evidence for his descent from the Tarquinian house, —a claim which, if established, would reduce the pretensions of every Northern family to absurdity. Who. are they, compared with one of the Tarquins ; and who was he, again, compared with a Cohen ?